It's finally paying off!

I kew it, I always knew it! Once there would come a day where all this pesky blogging stuff would finally pay off! I would get my fifteen minutes of fame, along with a first class redirection to life's fast lane. I was right - the proof arrived just the other day.
I received this very interesting mail:

Hi,

I found your blog epitheton ornans on Blogger and I may have an interesting proposal for you.
I work for the CityMedia foundation (citymediafoundation.org) and we are currently offering relevant bloggers from all over the world a chance to become the administrator of their city’s video site; this is why I’m contacting you.

We created the [City].vi network, making videos of world cities instinctively accessible with this address model: “city name” followed by “.vi”
For example: paris.vi, madrid.vi, chicago.vi, losangeles.vi, etc.
The address model works for 68,000 of the world’s most important cities. Think about a city and try...

The objective of the [City].vi network is to become the leading resource for local video content. Our strategy: working with relevant local bloggers.

We would be pleased you become the administrator of silkeborg.vi and offer internet surfers a comprehensive video selection about Silkeborg.
By managing your city’s video site you earn all of the revenues made from the site: ads, professionals registrations, links...

You must also know that for a same city, we send a proposal to several bloggers.

The city’s video site is then delegated to the one who made the best offer.
This is the most efficient way for us to select site administrators who will be motivated to propose their citizens and city’s visitors a comprehensive video selection.

Come on the site, you will find the proposal in detail and the advantages to work with us and take control of your city's video site.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl500NppDCY
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/city.vi
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/city_vi

Thank you for your attention.

Vicki Karlin
City.vi Manager
City.vi, a tool by CityMedia Fdt
citymediafoundation.org

Well, this mail contains about everything required for a third or fourth class TV daily soap: An idea of very restricted brightness, a whole bunch of empty bullshit bingo phrases and an exposé which raises more questions than it answers. So I clicked the video link to find enlightenment, but instead, I found this:



For the good part, this video requires neither language nor reading skills. For the not so good part, it provides almost no information at all. This awesome work of post modern video art consists of prominent placement of Google logos, screen shots of some [City].vi sites and several minutes of boooooring Google Earth animation. I estimate, it took almost a whole afternoon to do that.

OK, there's at least one symbol which could be the crucial recurring motif in this six minute opera:


$

This symbol repeatedly moves from the web site shots towards the profile pictures of heroic bloggers supposedly taking care of these sites. Could there be a hidden message?

The so called "City Media Foundation" claims to be based near Lausanne in Switzerland, while the phone numbers are clearly french and the TLD ".vi" belongs to the Virgin Islands.

Registrant Name:Julien Panouillot
Registrant Organization:CITY MEDIA FOUNDATION
Registrant Street1:Chemin des Vernes
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Romanel
Registrant State/Province:
Registrant Postal Code:1032
Registrant Country:CH
Registrant Phone:+33.688090353

All (OK, I did not check all 70.000 of them) the [City].vi domains already in operation are registered to:

Registrant: Cities & Communication
Name: CNC100 Cities & Communication
Organization Name: Cities & Communication
Street Address: Corporate Place, 5600 Royal Dane Mall
City: St.Thomas 
State:VI
Post Code: 00802
Country: VI
Phone #: (340) 774-2944
Email: domains@cnc.vi 

a company based on the Virgin Islands. Part from this mismatch, something else looks quite strange to me. My attempt to get my own .vi domain at nic.vi came to an unexpected end when I saw their price list. Even for locals, they charge 35$, non locals should pay no less than 50$ per domain and year. This is roughly ten times the average consumer price for regular domains. That really makes me wonder, how much they might have paid for their 70.000 domains.

All that left me even more curious about the real intention behind this spam mail. So i navigated one of my browsers to silkeborg.vi (Yes - it's there already!) and clicked the link saying "Become the site administrator. More information" and enlightenment struck me:

Let googlebot share this as well:

How to make Silkeborg.vi your site:
The [City].vi network video sites can be hired for periods of one year.
Allocation of [City].vi sites is based on submitted bids.
A bid is how much you intend to offer to run the site for 1 year.
Offers can be submitted for 20 days after the first offer is made.
At the end of the 20 day period, control of the site is awarded to the person who made and paid for the best offer.

Once a [City].vi site is yours, no one else will be able to manage it unless you decide not to renew it the following year.

The renewal price is the same as your initial offer.

You have no commitments and can stop running the site whenever you want.

So now we're talking. Somehow, the idea is quite admirable. There is an almost infinite amount of cities in this world and every single one of them can have its own [City].vi site. Provided, the Virgin Islands nic is somehow part of this not so clean game, the sites come at close to no cost for "City Media Foundation". On the other hand, there is a very obscure auction running for every single city domain, driven by bloggers who hope to earn some revenues from this next big thing service.

In the end there will be a bunch of bloggers paying a fantastic amount for a close-to-useless site (after all, this is not paris.vi, this is huts-by-the-river.vi or silkeborg.vi), leaving the "City Media Foundation" and their "partners" with roughly 100% revenue. Not so bad (for them)!

In the end, it's a pity that it always comes down to the same old story about greed and stupidity...